Cineplot Music

Dilruba

Dilruba

The dilruba has a shape like that of a sarangi with a longer dandi and played with a bow made of a horse hair like the bow of the violin, but has movable frets like the sitar numbering nineteen, but unlike the sarangi which has no frets. It has four main strings, two made of steel and two of brass, besides about nineteen to twenty-two sympathetic strings with four tuning pegs—two placed vertically on the face of the instrument and two on the side like the sitar. The dilruba has somewhat pleasanter and more delicate tone than the sarangi. The playing strings are tuned Sa Pa Sa Ma (C, G, C, F). The dilruba has been mostly popular in U.P., Delhi and Punjab region. It has not had many votaries and there are not many famous dilruba players. Pyara Singh Martand, a staff artist of All India Radio was a distinguished dilruba player in his own right and popularized the instrument to some extent by his solo broadcast performances during the 1940s-1950s Om Prakash Sharma of Delhi is another dilruba player of distinction who also plays the esraj.

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